Campaign Blog - Day 31

Elizabeth May

September 03, 2015

A story that needs more attention was published in iPolitics today. Reading it as we moved from a seniors home to local canvassing in Fredericton, I felt a sense of increasing shock. It may be hard to get Elizabeth Thompson's meticulous research to make headlines anywhere. Missing orders in council is not the stuff of tabloids.

Orders in Council are decisions by Cabinet. They are posted to a website by the Privy Council Office. She went through 21,000 such decisions. She noticed discrepancies. A number skipped here and there. Did the missing number mean a decision was made and never posted? I had not realized until I read her article that such orders do not require an actual Cabinet decision. The PMO can send someone around with a document and with the signatures of 4 cabinet members Canada can sign a treaty. I wonder if that's how the Canada-China Investment Treaty got through. I always thought we had a few allies in Cabinet worried about selling out our sovereignty.

Elizabeth Thompson for iPolitics discovered 25 gaps equaling 25 secret OICs never‎ posted. Not listed even to say a decision has been made and classified secret. No Parliamentary oversight. No public knowledge. One man rule just got even more chilling.

I have been digging for agreements Canada has made with Ukraine. I wonder if those decisions fit in some of the gaps discovered by Elizabeth Thompson. And I wonder if Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair find this as disturbing as I do. If so, they better say something. This is abuse of power. It's not rhetorical "one man rule." It is actual one man rule.